On Queer/Trans Language and Imagery
Red, Blue, in Between, and Neither A Project by Kizer Shelton
Kizer Shelton
When I began writing more seriously in high school, I fell in love with feminine confessional poetry: women writing about their daily life, their body, sex, love, their children, and their worries. It resonated with me deeply as I was coming to understand my developing gender and sexuality. I quickly began to copy the forms, rhymes, and rhythms with which Sharon Olds, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath filled their pages. I soon realized that while the poems spoke to my femininity and the conventions surrounding it, it undeniably normalized a specific body as the subject in context to the themes aforementioned. With no transgender peers or mentors who were familiar with poetry, I searched online for the answer and found Tumblr, a free microblogging website where many people like me were creating dozens of archives of writing, both poetic and analytical (Selvivk 170). This essay will be an exploration and analysis of the sites of production of queer and trans vocabulary and imagery—such as: Tumblr,Youtube, drag balls, and self/portraiture. I am using the word “vocabulary” to more closely mean items of a lexicon rather than “slang;” and I am using “imagery” in a poetic sense to mean common images or motifs from a queer and trans visual culture which have the potential to be applied to a queer/trans poetics (Love 172). The word “queer,” as I have used a few times already is a bit more complex. Here it means identities associated with marginalized, nonnormative sexual desires and sexual practices, while “trans” describes nonnormative gender identities and embodiments.
The relationship between to the two ideas are linked in their activism, dissident methodologies, and interrogations of sexual and gender norms and normative dichotomies. Heather Love (173) describes the relationship well in an essay: “If queer can be understood as refusing the stabilizations of both gender and sexuality implied by the categories gay and lesbian opening onto a wider spectrum of sexual normativity, transgender emerged as a term to capture a range of gendered embodiments, practices, and community formations that cannot be accounted for by the traditional binary.” By combining the terms into the phrase queer/trans, I am nodding to their similarity as identities and studies of nonconformity; it also of course makes it easier to describe the language and visual culture which overlaps the identities. Photography From Catherine Opie to Del LaGrace Volcano, Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker, we see that the image of the body in photography is inseparable to the arsenal of queer/trans imagery—chiefly portraiture. From 1992 to 1994, Catherine Opie photographed herself, friends, and acquaintances—all of whom were queer (Butch women, drag queens, FTM persons for example—) in an exhibition titled CATHERINE OPIE: “PORTRAITS.” The Holbeinesque portraits were taken on crisp, bright, colorful backdrops with close attention to lighting
(Opie). In her semi-self-portrait “Bo,” Opie says that she is posing as a used aluminum siding salesman, a member of her lexicon of personas. The portrait of the transmasculine drag persona acts as an affirmative object to the transmasculine identity and expression (transmasculine meaning transgender men, female-to-male (FTM) folk, masculine genderqueer people, etc. (Hansbury)) Del LaGrace Volcano is an intersex, “gender terrorist” photographer who offers us selfportraits with politically charged craft (Volcano et al 190). (Intersex describes bodies who are not assigned male at birth (AMAB) nor assigned female at birth (AFAB) based on genital, genetic, or hormonal differences (Morland 111).) In herm’s photo series Herm Body (2011-) Volcano created prints using negatives from the rare medium of Polaroid film (type 665) of herm’s own aging body (Steinbock 540). (“Herm,” as used by Volcano is a word serving as a noun and a pronoun reclaiming from medical and mythical discourse and ambiguity which disrupts the gender binary (“Hermstory” 29).) In the traditional photographic process, negative images produced by the camera are turned into a positive images on photosensitive paper; whereas with this film type, a positive image is exposed concurrently to create an original negative. The film type during the production was very old and fragile and could have been destroyed at any stage of the photographic process. Volcano claims that this creates a metaphor for transexuality, defined by herm as the process of “mak[ing] real the subject’s true gender unto the body:” the delicate care of the photos as objects, the treatment of them with chemicals similar to a standard medical transition with hormones for trans people. Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker are two trans artists/filmmakers who documented five years of their romantic relationship (and inherently their transitions) with an autobiographical photo chronicle called Relationship (Drucker and Ernst). This is a part of the project’s statement: “Originally never intended for the public eye, these photographs paint an intimate portrait of two people in a time of great change, juxtaposed against the constancy of their closeness to each other.” The idea that these photos were meant to be kept between the
two artists to represent them shows the obvious purpose of the body as a temporal marker of transition in documentary photography: by photographing their bodies they were able to represent their relationship and transitions. They could have taken pictures of objects in their homes or what they ate for lunch to document these events, but the image of their bodies together was used because of the efficiency of the image of the body to present a queer/trans narrative. Paris Is Burning and Drag Balls “Drag” is a gendered and sexualized performance where a cisgender person dresses up as a societally idealized version of another gender (i.e. men dress and perform as straight women and women, straight men (Paris Is Burning; Schacht 157.)) This role can be seen as just entertainment and competition on the outside but has personal gender politics surrounding it. For many trans people, it can serve as an experimentation of gender where they can perform a gender which they identify with in a safe space around people within the community. Paris Is Burning is a region-specific documentation of this role by cis men and trans women. Paris Is Burning is a voyeur film documenting drag balls and the current families of mothers and children on the Harlem scene from the mid to late 1980s. It is structured by introducing people and ball vocabulary with blockish, white text on a black background each lasting a few seconds, the same as the title card in the beginning of the film. This form makes it easy to learn the names and the vocabulary which could be lost in speech if not spelled out outside of the interviews. This organization proves the Harlem ball scene is a rich site of cultural and linguistic production. The drag balls featured in Paris Is Burning are drags competitions featuring mostly black
and latinx contestants, who identify largely with the umbrella terms “gay” and “transexual,” compete for different titles and ranks. There is a queer family structure involved in this scene where when a contestant has been going to balls for a long time and has been successful, they become the mother of “houses,” comprised of the mothers and children who are successful younger contestants whom the mothers recruit. Almost all of the vocabulary describes different performances within intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality. I have mentioned in the definition that drag is a performance of gender and sexuality, but within the context of Paris is Burning, there are many “categories” of competition ball where the drag role is more specific than straight, cis men and women. For example, there is the category of “Executive Realness” where men dress act walk to perform a role which is granted by privileges given by one’s race, class, and sexuality. It is stated by the narrator during this scene that “[it] is everybody’s dream and ambition as a minority—to live and look as well as a white person...That is why... it is so obvious that if you have captured the great, white way of living, or looking, or dressing or speaking—you is a marvel (Paunpaira).” This quote puts into perspective the personal effects of the performance, its psychology, and its cultural significance. Youtube and Tumblr The Internet is a vital psychological space where queer/trans youth have a massive amount of potential to support, inform, and collaborate with each other from great physical differences (O’Neill 43; Wuest 19). Youtube is a video publishing and vlogging platform with a subscriber infrastructure. For many queer youth specifically, it is a site of cautious optimism and anonymity where they may express their sexuality to followers in “coming out” videos. These videos can often
be long and understandably brimming with emotion; many of them are meant for a parent or loved one, while many are informal, angry, and cathartic; some of them are riddled with personal branding, while others are the only videos posted by users. Wuest (14) suggests that this process is often a first or early articulation of a user’s gender and sexual identity . This rhetoric act is essential in the establishment of public and personal identities; therefor, Youtube is commonly a site of assertion and affirmation for queer and trans youth. As I have mentioned in my introduction, Tumblr is a free microblogging platform where users can customize a dashboard with content from different users. With a tagging system, general themes and specific keywords can help users easily find what they need. After just a Google search of queer/trans resources with Tumblr in the line, one can find many “masterposts” filled with hyperlinks to news articles, trans health information, suicide hotlines, beauty tips, legal rights information, clothing swaps, etc. There is also an academic edge to much of the queer/trans content in the lineage of queer theory. While some of it is deconstructionist by nature, it becomes essentialist in which it ignores intersections of user’s identities such as race, class, ability, etc. As a site of linguistic production, many of these blogs include dictionary or glossary pages for their followers. The words are created here, explored, they can be analyzed from formal or informal online discourse, and historical conversations. (Cishits; Anagnori). One important separation from these sites are the themes of instant gratification and comfort. Tumblr’s interface can be very cold and uninviting. While the content and the spread of information among queer/trans people builds a sense of community, because of a lack of physical, human representation can harshly separate users within the same community. This is also due to the essentialist identity politics which can form here. Youtube however, with many users employing the “talking head” format, the content is framed as a conversation among peers rather than long posts of jargon which can be easily misunderstood and can make a user feel attacked (Horak 575).
Conclusion This analysis of self/portraiture, drag balls, and the internet barely scrapes the surface of sites of the creation of queer/trans language and imagery. The history of queer/trans people is so rich and vast, changing forms and names, altering its shape over time. This book of collages is an artistic exploration into queer/trans imagery and language. I posted on Facebook asking friends who identified as queer or trans to send me selfies, found text, and random pictures which were already on their phone that they enjoyed. In this exploration I thought that I could find queer/trans imagery organically by exploring what I know what I learn from my friends, and then following with knowledge of the community from my own life. All of the text references internet culture such as Geocities, fonts, Snapchat, and emoticons. Here are the names of the friends in order: Nadia Wolfe, Alex Rodriguez, Saxton Fisher, Keeli Ayn & Robin Woodward, Tristan Quiniou, Nathan Freeman, Harini Nilakantan, Joseph Jordan, Wayne Tate, and Martyr.
Works Cited Anagnori. “Glossary of Transgender, Non-Binary and Genderqueer Words.” Anagnori.tumblr. com. Tumblr, 3 Jan. 2014. Web. Catherine Opie: Portraits. Perf. Catherine Opie. Sfmoma.org. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2016. Web. Cishits. “EDUCATE YOURSELF: A Brief Lexicon of Common Vocabulary and Rhetoric of the Trans Community and of the Greater Lgbtqia Community.” Cishits.tumblr.com.
Tumblr, n.d. Web. Drucker, Zackary, and Rhys Ernst. “Relationship Series.” Blog post. ZACKARHYS. Tumblr, n.d. Web. Hansbury, Griffin. “Middle Men: An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality 6.3 (n.d.): 241. EBSCOhost. Analytic Press, Inc, 1 July 2005. Web. Horak, Laura. “Trans on YouTube: Intimacy, Visibility, Temporality.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.4 (2014): 572-85. Print. Love, Heather. “Queer.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.1-2 (2014): 172-75. Print. Morland, Iaian. “Intersex.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.1-2 (2014): 111-15. Print. O’Neill, Matthew G. “Transgender Youth and Youtube Videos: Self-Representation and Five Identifiable Trans Youth Narratives.” Queer Youth and Media Cultures. By Christopher Pullen. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 34-45. Print. Paris Is Burning. Dir. Jennie Livingston. Perf. Venus Xtravaganza and Wili Ninja. Academy Entertainment Off White Productions, 1991. Seen in Class. Paunpaira. “Paris Is Burning Transcript.” Transcript Vids. N.p., 12 June 2012. Web. Schacht, Steven P. “Four Renditions of Doing Female Drag: Feminine Appearing Conceptual Variations of a Masculine Theme.” Advances in Gender Research: Gendered Sexualities. Ed. Patricia Gagné and Richard Tewksbury. Vol. 6. Amsterdam: JAI: Elsevier Science, 2002. 157-80. Print. Selvivk, Stephanie. “Androgynous Social Media and Visual Culture.” Queer Youth and Media Cultures. Ed. Christopher Pullen. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 170-81. Print. Steinbock, Elizza. “Generative Negatives: Del LaGrace Volcano’s Herm Body Photographs.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.4 (2014): 539-51. Print.
Volcano, Del LaGrace, Eliza Steinbock, and Jay Prosser. “INTER*me: An Inter-Locution on the Body in Photography.” Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives. Ed. Stefan Horlacher. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 189-224. Print. Volcano, Del LaGrace. “Hermstory.” The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. Ed. Amelia Jones. London: Routledge, 2010. 27-30. Print. Wuest, Bryan. “Stories like Mine: Coming Out Videos and Queer Identities on Youtube.” Queer Youth and Media Cultures. By Christopher Pullen. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 19-33. Print.